by Lotta Smith
“Come on, don’t tell me you just brought another absurd case.” Jack furrowed his eyebrows, but for the first time, he moved his eyes from the screen and looked at his longtime friend.
“Absurd or not—that’s not for us ordinary people to judge. Thanks in advance for investigating this property. Gotta go. Things to do.” Turning on his heels, Russel flashed me a dazzling smile worth a billion dollars. “So, Fio. Thanks again for joining the team. I hope you enjoy working here. Ciao!” Patting my shoulder, he walked out of the room looking like a more photogenic version of James Bond.
“Ciao,” I replied, wondering whether Andy Russel was real or I’d just had another daydream.
When I recalled that Russel left a file, I saw that Jack was in the middle of studying it.
“Direc—I mean, Mr. Adams?” I called to Jack, recalling rule number one, but he didn’t answer. I could see he was deeply absorbed with the case file, but I grew uneasy when he was unresponsive after several attempts. “Mr. Adams? Hello? Hey, Jack?”
“Yes?” he replied abruptly, turning to me. “Did you call me? Maybe multiple times?”
“I’m afraid so,” I answered, expecting him to say something like “I’m not deaf” and “Since when did our relationship move to a first-name-basis?” but that wasn’t the case.
“Sorry about it. I’ve been working alone for quite some time, and that’s why I’m unfamiliar with having someone else in this office.” His tone was sincere. “Besides that, I haven’t yet gotten used to being called Mr. Adams.”
“Pardon me?” I was clueless and confused. I wondered if he was trying to make a joke, but he sounded serious. Also, I knew better than to stick my nose where it didn’t belong.
Jack didn’t seem to care about my confusion. “There you go, it’s your first case.” He passed on the case file to me.
“Oh, my first case… What?” My eyes widened. Did he just say your first case, not our first case?
“Let’s go.” Standing up abruptly and picking up multiple cardboard boxes scattered on the floor, he headed for the door.
I scurried after him, not quite grasping the situation.
“Atta girl, Fio—” I thought I caught the voice of Great Mama Jane from a distance, but it could have been my imagination.
Anyway, my new witchy career had just begun.
* * *
Want to read more about Fio and Jack’s adventures? Fabulous! Too Spooked for Witch will be coming soon, and you can pre-order it now.
Have you met Mandy, another accidental witch with the FBI? In case you haven’t, let me introduce her.
In case you’ve missed: Wicked for Hire
Prologue
966 Park Avenue Tower
11:48 AM, November 10…
With a weird moan, her whole body shivering, she collapses onto the sofa.
I think she’s lucky that she’s already sitting on the sofa as she crumples. If she was standing, she might have cracked her head on the marble floor like Humpty Dumpty—which won’t be pretty.
She’s lying there, totally motionless. One elbow’s stiffly bent at a right angle, as if she’s turned into stone as the result of looking Medusa in the eye.
I gasp—fearing she’s dead.
Rick Rowling, the head of the FBI’s New York Paranormal Division and my boss for the past two days, approaches and touches her neck. Looking totally blasé, he confirms that she’s still alive.
I let out a sigh of relief.
On the other hand, Rowling announces that we leave the place because “It’s boring.”
My eyes widen with a total disbelief.
Of course, I disagree with him, but he brushes off my objection, stating that he doesn’t care about all the crap of making arrests, prosecuting, and taking cases to trial. Again, he says that it’s just a minor issue and he’s way too busy for that. “You know what? I have better things to do,” Rowling declares, turning on his heels to leave the condo.
“Excuse me, Rick,” I call to his back.
“What?” he asks, without turning around.
“We can’t just leave,” I say. Then it suddenly occurs to me that offending my boss isn’t in my best interest, so I add, “I’m afraid.”
“Why not?” He cocks his head. “Mandy, don’t be such a killjoy. The NYPD can work on the boring stuff, such as deciphering the social pathology of crimes and so on, because they have time to kill. On the other hand, I have no time to waste.”
“Okay, so we don’t need to decipher the social pathology of crimes, but we do need to figure out the whereabouts of the human-eating monster, don’t we?” I point out.
I’m not joking or exaggerating.
I’m talking about a practically imperishable ghoul which could eat up the entire population of New York State, if not the whole world.
* * *
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About the author
Hi! My name is Lotta Smith. I’m the author of Paranormal in Manhattan Mysteries and Kelly Kinki Mysteries. I love everything comedy, from novels, TVs, to movies. In my teenage days, I was addicted to mysteries that involves amateur sleuth duo of a hot male professor and a quirky female student—with a light touch of romance sprinkled on top. So I went to medical school, partly because I wanted to see real dead bodies, and mostly because I was determined to meet sexy professors (specializing forensic pathology, perhaps) and go a-sleuthin’.
I got to see dead bodies and learn about the danger of petting zoos (sometimes, kids have their lips bitten off by…say, a pony!) but unfortunately, sexy professors were absolutely nonexistent. Recently, I realized that I’m a hopeless unromantic.
I’m hard at work writing new books.
To hear about new books and discounted book sales, please sign up for my newsletter at:
Lotta Smith Newsletter
And check out my other books on Amazon
Paranormal in Manhattan Mysteries:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07KJK96RF
PI Assistant Extraordinaire Mysteries:
Book 1: Ghostly Murder: http://amzn.to/204aWJ4
Book 2: Immortal Eyes: http://amzn.to/1T4DKC3
Book 3: Deadly Vision: http://amzn.to/1og0Pp9
Also, there’s a bundle of 3 books available…
Confessions of the Assistant Extraordinaire: amzn.to/1R3GaO6
